Mark Davis [mailto:mark@macchiato.com] wrote:
> "Marco Cimarosti" <marco.cimarosti@essetre.it> wrote:
> > I wonder what "directly from Latin" may mean in the case of English.
> Because
> > of some timing problems, I would say it means: "through direct knowledge
> of
> > *written* Latin".
> There was a period well after the Norman invasion where a large number of
> words came into English directly from Latin, which was still in widespread
> use among scholars.
Yes, and it was right into the early 20th Century. Even when I was in school a large percentage of English schoolboys _had_ to learn Latin (- and in many "public" [private] schools they still do). This included "spoken" Latin - though I'm sure the pronunciation taught was quite different than what it was in 55 BCE. Not all that long ago you couldn't get into many English universities without having studied some Latin.
In English we still get plenty of scientific names and terms from Latin and Greek and many of these words eventually come into more common usage.
- Chris
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